I’m challenging you to get in 15 workouts with no excuses over the course of the month of November. That’s it. It’s just 15 different days of workouts without making up an excuse, complaining or trying to squirm your way out of getting active.

Other versions have turmeric and black pepper added but I haven’t tried that yet.

Ginger powder (because I don’t have fresh ginger usually) 1/2 tsp

Cardamom powder pinch

Nutmeg pinch

Cinnamon pinch

Honey 1/2 tsp

I like to heat water in the cup for a minute in the microwave and then add all these and mix them, allow the tea to become slightly warmer than lukewarm (5 minutes) and then drink it, around half an hour before I sleep.

There will always be an exam, perhaps a paper deadline, a meeting to prepare for, a project due, an assignment to be completed, a presentation to be made, code to be written, papers to be read. There will always be a reason for me to postpone taking care of my health – both physical and mental. Today, I choose to put it on a higher priority than anything else.

I usually make this with strawberries and nonfat milk blended in the blender, but today, I blended it with nonfat vanilla yogurt (thanks for the tip, P!) and some water to make it thinner, and it was much much better.

Parsley potatoes:

So I went to Whole Foods and saw a bunch of fresh curly parsley and bought it and then came home and realized I didn’t know what to do with it. It was way too much parsley for tabouli, and I didn’t have bulgur or tomatoes. So, I decided to google and found recipes for parsley potatoes. They looked a little bland so I decided to make my own version.

This makes around 4 servings as a side dish with bread.

Cut a few red potatoes into bite sized pieces, cut one large onion (slightly more volume than the potatoes). Basically I wanted equal quantities of potato and onion in the final dish. Mince one clove of garlic. Chop an entire bunch of parsley. Cut the potatoes first and put them in a pan with some water and let it simmer till they are almost done.

Drain the potatoes and put butter in a pan and fry the onions and garlic with some salt. I used a cholesterol free butter substitute. I should say that this is a heavy fattening dish – which is why I made it on my day off from work, I can sleep all I want. Plus, I was craving comfort food😛 Anyway, back to recipe.

Add the potatoes once the onions are soft (don’t let them caramelize, don’t want that sweet taste). Mix everything around, add more butter if needed and add all the parsley. I like cooking parsley, don’t like the raw taste that much. Season with salt and pepper.

Then transfer everything into a baking tray (I just use the one I use for cake). Bake for around 15 minutes at 300 F. Meanwhile, make a cheesy creamy sauce😀 Make a standard Bechamel sauce, I didn’t measure but I think I used 2 tsp of butter, some nonfat milk, some all purpose flour and half a (small) bag of cheddar cheese. First add butter in the pan at medium heat, then slowly add milk and then flour to get the consistency you want. Add the cheddar slowly and keep the mix at sim, that’s when cheddar melts best. I didn’t feel the need to season the sauce because the cheddar was salty enough.

Take the potatoes out of the oven and pour the cheesy sauce on top of them, and pop it back into the oven. Bake for another 20 minutes.